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E-commerce system for the purchasing intermediation type and operating system for the shopping-mall applied thereof

E-commerce system for the purchasing intermediation type and operating system for the shopping-mall applied thereof description/claims

The present invention relates to an electronic commerce system of a group-driven purchase broker type and a shopping mall operating system applied thereto, and more particularly, to an electronic commerce system of a group-driven purchase broker type and a shopping mall operating system applied thereto, wherein buyers can jointly purchase merchandise at a price lower than a regular price through a purchase broker group (alumni association, society, etc.) who negotiates prices with sellers, and sellers can make more profits owing to the increase of sales amount since a buyer does not individually purchase merchandise, but a plurality of buyers collectively purchase merchandise through the purchase broker group even though the sellers sell merchandise at a reduced price lower than the regular price.

According to rapid spread of the Internet, on-line shopping malls where sellers and buyers dealing a variety of merchandise make transactions and payment for merchandise on-line without directly meeting each other have been recently generalized. In the initial stage of such on-line shopping malls, mall-in-mall type shopping malls (Interpark, Samsung Mall, Amazon, etc.) mostly driven by large enterprises on the foundation of high reputation were popular. However, a relevant shopping mall operating company should directly manage all sorts of solutions and infrastructures needed for sales, after services (delivery, refund/exchange, etc.), and the like. Accordingly, there is a problem in that merchandise can be distributed only when a certain amount of margin is expected, and it is difficult to distribute competitive merchandise since a specific seller is mostly designated as an exclusive provider of a specific item. However, open-market type shopping malls (hereinafter, referred to as ‘e-marketplace shopping malls’, such as Auction, G-Market, eBay, etc.) are much in vogue recently, wherein a shopping mall operating company only acts as a broker between sellers and buyers and manages general distribution solutions, such as advertisement, operation, settlement, or payment for merchandise, whereas the sellers by themselves register merchandise and manage after services associated with sales, so that the shopping mall operating company can be operated at a lower cost. Further, since a plurality of sellers competes with one another to sell merchandise of the same kind for each item, the price of the merchandise are lowered.

Meanwhile, off-line joint purchase, which is transacted generally between the affiliated companies of a large enterprise, is increased due to high efficiency. Here, the ‘joint purchase’ is a method in which a plurality of buyers who wish to purchase the same kind of merchandise designates a seller and purchases the merchandise by jointly ordering the merchandise. Most of the affiliated companies of a large enterprise jointly purchase merchandise together with partner companies to thereby build up huge buying power. Accordingly, all participants can purchase merchandise at a lower price. Therefore, it is advantageous in that through joint purchase, buyers can purchase merchandise at a price much lower than that of individual purchase by making best use of a variety of benefits such as product cost reduction, planned orders, and distribution cost reduction, whereas sellers can make more profits owing to the increase of sale amount.

However, according to the aforementioned joint purchase method, a high discount rate can be applied to large enterprises due to a large transaction scale even though they do not employ the aforementioned joint purchase method. Contrarily, since medium and small enterprises seldom do businesses through the joint purchase method and transaction amount is relatively smaller than that of a large enterprise, there is a problem in that a discount rate as much as a large enterprise cannot be applied to the medium and small enterprises.

Furthermore, when a plurality of individuals other than enterprises jointly purchases merchandise, purchase demands are much smaller and cannot be estimated. Thus, there is a problem in that individuals who desire to participate in the joint purchase are hard to negotiate a price at a more advantageous position than sellers and the discount rate is lower than that of an enterprise. Meanwhile, a specific on-line shopping mall has directly attempted to perform the collective purchase or joint purchase centering on a relevant shopping mall site. However, since the participants do neither have a common sense of belonging nor actively take part in purchase, it has not been widely employed so much.

Presently, on-line shopping mall operators or on-line sellers uniformly determine the price of merchandise and sell the merchandise without regard to buyers' buying power. Therefore, enterprises or individuals who wish to purchase specific merchandise in a large quantity frequently get in direct touch with sellers in order to separately receive an estimate and purchase merchandise.

Furthermore, since prices of most of merchandise are easily open to everybody through price comparison sites, on-line shopping mall operators or on-line sellers should make a great deal of efforts to establish price order in distribution channels, and thus, side effects such as frequent request for refund are sometimes produced. Particularly, since manufacturers or exclusive sellers are not free from open prices even when they wish to clear the remaining stock or need urgent money, dishonors amid profits frequently occur.

Still furthermore, most of on-line shopping mall operators or on-line sellers invest a great deal of advertising expenses through multimedia and develop direct marketing to attract enterprise or individual customers. However, they greatly suffer from unsatisfied effect on investment.

The present invention is conceived to solve the aforementioned problems in the prior art. An object of the present invention is to provide an electronic commerce system of a group-driven purchase broker type and a shopping mall operating system applied thereto, wherein buyers connecting to on-line shopping malls gather together centering on a specific group (alumni association, society, etc.) in which buyers are already gathered on-line or off-line, and the group functions as a center of efficient purchase brokerage, thereby providing a purchase brokerage environment.

Another object of the present invention is to provide an electronic commerce system of a group-driven purchase broker type and a shopping mall operating system applied thereto, wherein sellers do not offer the same price to a plurality of groups of buyers gathered centering on a group, but offer a further discounted price to a purchase group having big buying power by determining a different price based on the number of buyers belonging to the group or monthly purchase amount of the group and registering merchandise at the determined prices, thereby allowing a large purchase group to purchase merchandise at a lower price.

A further object of the present invention is to provide an electronic commerce system of a group-driven purchase broker type and a shopping mall operating system applied thereto, wherein a specific group in charge of purchase brokerage allows a buyer of a large purchase quantity to purchase merchandise at a further reduced price according to the purchase amount of the buyer belonging to the group and allows a general buyer of small purchase amount to purchase merchandise at a price lower than that of individual purchase through joint purchase even though the purchase amount is not large.

A still further object of the present invention is to provide an electronic commerce system of a group-driven purchase broker type and a shopping mall operating system applied thereto, wherein if on-line shopping mall operators or on-line sellers sell merchandise according to the on-line distribution method of the present invention, a different price is determined for each buyer belonging to the relevant group, and the price of one buyer is not known to the other buyers and even to price comparison sites, and thus, they can comfortably sell merchandise.

A still further object of the present invention is to provide an electronic commerce system of a group-driven purchase broker type and a shopping mall operating system applied thereto, wherein sellers of enterprise merchandise or personal merchandise do not need to invest a great deal of advertisement expenses in direct marketing to attract enterprise or individual customers, but can efficiently develop relation marketing through a plurality of large groups.

According to an aspect of the present invention for achieving the objects, there is provided an electronic commerce system of a group-driven purchase broker type, comprising a shopping mall operating company for providing an on-line shopping mall where a variety of merchandise is transacted and for storing discount rates of merchandise registered in the on-line shopping mall; a sales client for registering information including prices of a variety of merchandise in the shopping mall operating company; a group client connected to the shopping mall operating company to broker sales of merchandise at a price to which the discount rate is applied; a purchase client belonging to the group client and connected to the shopping mall operating company to purchase merchandise through brokerage of a purchase the group client at the price to which the discount rate is applied; and a wired/wireless communication network for connecting the shopping mall operating company, the sales client, the group client and the purchase client with one another.

According to another aspect of the present invention for achieving the objects, there is provided a shopping mall operating system, comprising a shopping mall server for providing on-line shopping mall services through a wired/wireless communication network; a member information DB for storing credit information of a sales client, a purchase client, and a group client for brokering transactions of merchandise between the sales client and the purchase client, each client being connected to the shopping mall server through the wired/wireless communication network; a merchandise information DB for storing information on a variety of merchandise registered in the shopping mall server by the sales client; a discount information DB for storing discount rates to be applied to the merchandise registered by the sales client; and a management server for sending the discount rates stored in the discount information DB to the shopping mall server based on the credit information of the group client stored in the member information DB if the purchase client connected to the shopping mall server is a purchase client belonging to the group client.

According to a further aspect of the present invention for achieving the objects, there is provided an electronic commerce method of a group-driven purchase broker type which is performed between a shopping mall operating company for providing an on-line shopping mall where a variety of merchandise is transacted, a sales client for registering information on a variety of merchandise in the shopping mall operating company through a wired/wireless communication network, a purchase client for purchasing a variety of merchandise from the shopping mall operating company through the wired/wireless communication network, and a plurality of group clients connected to the shopping mall operating company through the wired/wireless communication network for brokering transactions of merchandise between the sales client and the purchase client. The method comprises the steps of (a) registering, by the sales client, information on merchandise in the shopping mall operating company; (b) providing, by the shopping mall operating company, credit information of a plurality of the group clients to the sales client; (c) selecting, by the sales client, a certain group client for brokering the merchandise registered in step (a); (d) selecting, by the purchase client, the merchandise registered in step (a); and (e) offering, by the shopping mall operating company, a price of merchandise, to which a predetermined discount rate is applied, to the purchase client based on the credit information of the group client selected in step (c), if the purchase client in step (d) is a purchase client belonging to the group client selected in step (c).

According to a still further aspect of the present invention for achieving the objects, there is provided a shopping mall operating method which is performed by a shopping mall operating company between the shopping mall operating company for providing an on-line shopping mall where a variety of merchandise is transacted, a sales client for registering information on a variety of merchandise in the shopping mall operating company through a wired/wireless communication network, a purchase client for purchasing a variety of merchandise from the shopping mall operating company through the wired/wireless communication network, and a plurality of group clients connected to the shopping mall operating company through the wired/wireless communication network for brokering transactions of merchandise between the sales client and the purchase client. The method of the present invention comprises the steps of (a) storing information on certain merchandise registered by the sale client; (b) providing credit information of a plurality of the group clients to the sale client; (c) selecting, by the sales client, a certain group client for brokering the merchandise registered in step (a); (d) applying a predetermined discount rate to the registered merchandise based on the credit information of the group client selected in step (c); and (e) offering a price of the merchandise to which the discount rate in step (d) is applied, if a purchase client belonging to the group client selected in step (c) requests to purchase merchandise.

• Provisional Patent
• Utility Patent

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